July 19, 2006

Often we hear how an organization spends time and money to acquire an e-mail address of one of their customers, load it into their system, but then that is the end of the story.

What I respect and appreciate are the member-based organizations I work with who have to work a little harder to maintain their subscriber list.

Every time we send a newsletter for the Iowa Better Business Bureau, a staff member at the bureau downloads the addresses that were documented to be "undelvierable" and then researches each individual situation to find a way to correct it.

This helps maintain a good deliverability rate and more importantly a good reputation with their customers.

Keeping a "clean" list of e-mail addresses will also mean you are not receiving a high rate of bounce-backs. The bounce-back or undeliverable rate associated with your domain (@company.com) is one factor that Internet Service Providers such as AOL, YaHoo and often local business servers consider when determining whether or not to receive your e-mail. It is important to maintain a low undeliverable rate, less than %20 and preferably around %5.

If you are e-mailing to a subscriber list you have worked hard to acquire, this process is one I think is well worth your time.